12 April 1999 - NATO: empty buildings

“I’m glad you asked that. As you mention, NATO is destroying vacant buildings with expensive cruise missiles, and we’re doing it for a very good reason, and I’ll explain that reason right now. Two very good reasons, I should say. And one of the reasons is so as to minimize collateral damage. There are no civilians in an evacuated building. And secondly, I just want to emphasize that you shouldn’t underestimate, we certainly never underestimate the sophistication of the military, that is of the NATO force tasking process. We have an operational fires capability for precision engagement, and we’re going, obviously we’re going to make optimum use of assets for battlespace shaping throughout the depth of the theater. Next question.”
— NATO spokesman Major General Kablooey